We took those three ferries away…

Well, moving day has come and gone.  Just as suddenly as we arrived and our lifestyle took a 180, we departed and completed the circle.

Our moving day went as well as we could have hoped.  We caught each of the sailings we were aiming for, and as a special coincidence, Baba arrived at the Nanaimo terminal 5 cars behind ours so we got to spend some time together on our final sailing of the day. Willa was thrilled, and in exceptional travelling form.

The day was lovely, and even the traffic was calm for us.  The city was stunningly beautiful as we drove through downtown, and pulled up to Krista and Scott’s place just around the dinner hour.  Vancouver is clearly experiencing a post-olympic high, and I could just feel the positive energy everywhere.

It was an exciting evening, and the cousins were pretty excited to be re-united.  It was wonderful to have a friendly welcoming pad after a long day of travel.  As a special treat, a dear friend I hadn’t seen in years was over for a visit upon arrival.

We took some time out to catch up before going over to see the new home for the first time and unloading the vehicles.

It was a bit odd to be arriving to our new place never having seen it before, and it all worked out well.  This place will suit us just fine, and our landlords are just as nice in person which we truly appreciate.

Do I miss that glorious lake view, the tranquility, the gorgeous setting, the canoe rides, the trails? ~ indeed.  I also welcome the lovely quiet(ish) neighbourhood with all the parks, services (a library 2 blocks away!!!) family, friends, and the people. The gardens and street trees are exploding in bloom.  It reminds me to get going to Van Deusen Gardens asap.  It is one of my favourite Vancouver hangouts, and this time of year is especially inspiring.

Life is good there… and here, and, as an old friend of mine likes to sign all his cards, regardless of the occasion, “wherever you go, there you are”.  Here we are, in Beautiful East Vancouver, and it’s good to be home.

I’ll post some examples of gorgeous Vancouver in bloom when I uncover the cords I require.

Skate Park

It’s a fairly recent, and much appreciated addition to the list of amenities of Manson’s Landing.  I do not know much about these sorts of facilities, never having used one in my childhood when I had my beautiful pink swirly skateboard. In my inexperienced estimation, it looks like a really good one.  It’s big, and seems very well conceived with lots of different grades, rails and contours.  It certainly is well decorated, and almost every time we’ve gone, there are people in there skating.

Emmett was thrilled to have gotten a fine skateboard for Christmas.  Having come from grandma Dianne, all the safety gear was included so he was ready to roll.

Emmett has come a long way in a short time thanks to the facility, interest, persistence and Bubba.  Bubba is the uncle of one of Emmett’s good friends, and he has kindly helped out a lot of the young skaters with lessons and pointers when he’s there at the park.

Willa comes alive when we go there and races all around the edges and up the slopes.  It is a very exciting place to be for her, and we all seem to enjoy going to play, run and cheer for Emmett as he shows off his moves for us.

I just went to the cortes website and saw that they’ve just posted a reminder to wear safety equipment.  They provided a link to a page with some history and other pictures of the skatepark. So glad I took a peek, and even happier for the skate park!

Cortes Radio

One of the things I sorely missed when we first moved here was my daily listening to the CBC.  I tried to tune in many times, and the reception was pretty poor.  I noticed that if I turned all the lights off in the living/dining room the reception was much more clear.  With November’s short, and generally more grey days it did seem to be a compromise.  It’s also a bit of a sprint to get to radio head quarters to turn the thing off when the news comes on which happens fairly regularly.  Their news is ususally amazingly repetetive and we don’t really want Willa to be hearing the sort of stories that get broadcast.

Thankfully there is an alternative.  Cortes Radio is broadcast from Manson’s, and the reception is clear… even with the lights on!  It’s mostly music which suits Willa well, and usually quite an interesting mix.  Although I occasionally get pangs of longing for my regular radio personalities and discussions, I’d say I’ve kicked the habit with the help of 89.5 FM.

It was Emmett who introduced us to the station when he asked us to bring him to his Sunday afternoon slot from 2-3.  He shares it with his friend Joe, and they do a really good job. They both have their own musical leanings, with Green Day as the shared territory.  Emmett usually does most of the announcing, and they share the other duties quite well.  Requests are usually searched and played directly from YouTube, and they seem to get a fair number of calls in this one hour slot.  Sure there’s a certain amount of dead air, and basic broadcasting botch-ups, but for the most part these two nine year olds put together a great show.

A few weeks back Justice was invited to participate as a guest on Whaletown Willy’s evening show.  He does a weekly two hour mostly talk show, and they were having such a good  chat about  ” The purpose of sex in relationship” that Shawn let them cut into his show for an extra 40 mins.  The host is a real talker and as he mentioned several times, people can just turn off the radio if they’ve had enough~ I like that. The station seems to be a great creative outlet for self expression that a fair number of residents take part in (the broadcasting and listening end of things).  There are a great number of supporters if we let the Lip Synch fundraiser be an indicator.  You can even listen to them online from the Cortes website or from right HERE.

We paddled over to bring Emmett to his show this past Sunday so I got to take a look around the station which is right at the community hall.  Emmett did the show solo and seemed cool as a cucumber with both his little sisters climbing all over the place curious to see what their big brother was into with the head phones on at the control panel. I feel so impressed by his savvy and skills, and so appreciative that the radio station is there helping to develop them.

Easter Bluff

Saturday we joined our friends Andrew and Lily for a hike up Easter bluff.  The morning was a foggy one, but by the time we headed off, it had mostly cleared away.  The trail up is beautiful and has quite a different feel than the Kw’as lake trails we have become so familiar with.  I am not sure of the elevation gain, but the trail is a fair climb, especially for the three year olds.  They were both good  sports about it, and Lily set a quick pace for us to keep up with.

At the top we were treated to glorious views of the snow capped Coastal and Vancouver Island mountain ranges.  It could not have been a more brilliant day for the excursion, and once we arrived it became clear that there was no other place we would rather be. There was still some fog hovering over the ocean for our first hour at the top, which made for a mystical feel.  Our picnic was lovely, and it felt so good to bask in the sun with that terrific view.  The girls seemed inspired by all that moss underfoot, and ran about exploring for quite a time.

We visited, played games and relaxed up there for about three hours before thirst got the better of us (we’d tipped over our water jug accidentally).  The trip down was just as pretty as on the way up, and always more fun for the kids.  Wonderful to drink in that lofty view, sunshine and fresh air.

Dinner on the town

Justice has been wanting go out for dinner at the Sunset cafe, and decided that today was the day. He had taken the kids for an afternoon walk around Hollyhock and the beautiful beach, and they called to encourage me to join in on the fun.  I decided to go for it, and opted to walk rather than taking two vehicles – which was an excellent choice.  I realized that when I’m not coaxing or carrying Willa I can hussle to town in about 15 minutes, and with that steep hill at the end, I arrived ready for dinner, even though it was just after 5 pm.

There was a warm welcome for me when I arrived, and Willa got right back to her coloring.  She is in quite a fastidious colouring phase, and only bothered to be involved on a few choice occasions.  Justice suggested she have more food, and two times she replied “I’m coloring dad, stop nagging me”.  It was quite shocking to hear these words spoken  by her, but no less than the other day when Willa was telling me that she “hated” going on hikes. I suggested that she tone down her language and say that she “doesn’t like” hiking.  She looked at me for a good long time before she told me “sometimes I say hate, what’s the big deal?”.

We exchanged a few words with some of the other diners as they came and went, and watched as the very large band organized for their evening performance.

The dinner that had been ordered on my behalf was yummy and not all that healthy feeling.  Emmett selected the chocolate brownie with ice cream and the cheese cake with blackberry sauce to finish.  What a divine combo… we devoured them!

Even by our typically early standards, we were home before 6:30.  Athough we can’t really classify it as an evening, it was nice to go out for a dinner on the town.

A second, more starry, dinner on the town

Today was a glorious day.  Unfortunately Willa was a bit under the weather, and extra difficult to coerce out of the house.  This afternoon I coaxed Justice to knock off a little early and take advantage of the beauty. We paddled over to swim rock and it was exquisite.  Willa was in fine form chatting, singing and constantly on the go once we got there. She led us up the gorgeous bluff and right onto the trail system.  We’ve never hiked starting from that point so it felt like an adventure.  Lots of blown down trees in that area, one old fir about 5 feet in diameter blocked one direction of the path entirely so the choice was made for us.

After a great cheery hike we returned to bask in the sun and then set off homeward.  I had suggested heading to town to pick up a few groceries, and Willa siezed on this idea once we realized that going for dinner and returning by star/moonlight was an option since it was such an incredibly clear sky.  We were all quite excited by the prospect.

Dinner was wonderful!  Much better to have ordered for myself this time round, and everyone was in excellent spirits.

The return trip was definitely the highlight with an unbelievable blanket of stars above, and reflected in the lake, shimmering all around us.  Nothing short of magical.

First swimmers of the season

It wasn’t until mid-afternoon that all the fog burned off to reveal another glorious day on Cortes Island.  We headed out for a paddle to pick up a few groceries and return a movie.  On our way over we noticed some activity on the swim rocks.  There were kids playing about, and perhaps a dog splashing.  As we approached we realized that there was a person right in the water!  Justice insisted on getting closer to see who that brave soul was, and as we were ooh-ing, another girl splashed her way right in and under.

From my seat in the canoe it didn’t seem to me like swimming weather, but then again, I’m usually last one in at the height of a heat wave.

It was a lovely sound of kids splashing and playing as we paddled away to town, and a sure sign of the changing of seasons.